More 182 Woes

As I've written in previous posts, the alternator belt on the 182 has been periodically coming off during various phases of flight and we have been seeing traces of metal in the oil filter after oil changes. First the belt issue; we've recently tried a few more attempts at getting the pulleys in perfect alignment by making an alignment tool as recommended by a tech person at TCM so now the two pulleys are nearly perfectly aligned. So with everything lined up, the engine was run with the cowling off and the observation is that the belt is bowing up and down at around 2300 RPM (see video below). So even if the pulleys are aligned, the belt will eventually jump since its not remaining taught. There appears to be a vibration coming from the engine or propeller and after making some queries of the Cessna Owners Assoc., some others have seen this problem when there were bad crankshaft weights. Another owner had some missing pins for the alternator bracket, but these pins were airframe specific and our particular model of 182 doesn't require the pins.

Issue number two is the metal particles showing up in the oil filter. The first thought is that the metal is a remnant from the last cylinder failure that we had. But after changing the oil every 10 hours for the last few times, that metal should have worked its way out of the engine.

The question on everyone's mind is: are the belt/vibration issues and the metal in the oil related? No one knows for sure, but we don't have confidence in the airplane anymore and have decided to pull the engine and send it to the engine shop to be torn down and inspected. The shop is going to do something called an "IRAN" inspection. This inspection isn't cheap, but they will be able to get to the bottom of why the engine is producing metal and let us know if the crankshaft or something else is causing the vibration.

The engine was pulled on Wednesday and the engine shop will pick up the engine next week. Keep your fingers crossed.

A New $100 Hamburger Spot at KBVS

I had a student call me up and ask if I would fly with him up to the new restaurant (Kitty Hawk Cafe) that recently opened at KBVS. The Puget Sound skies had been nothing but rain and overcast the last few weeks, but today was an exception with clear skies. So we launched from KRNT and headed up to Skagit. I had recently attended a mountain flying seminar and the instructor mentioned that you should always bring your camera along because you never know what you will see. As we departed I noticed a perfect specimen of a lenticular cloud hovering over Mount Rainier. And wouldn't you know it, I went to snap the picture and the camera battery was dead. Ah! In any case, the food was was good and the portions quite large at the Kitty Hawk Cafe.

Weekend In Portland

We didn't have any plans to fly this past weekend, but one of the 182 partners cancelled his trip so the airplane became available. On a whim we packed the overnight bags and launched for KHIO on Friday after work. We ended up staying a couple of nights and visited the Oregon Zoo and did some exploring in downtown portland. The flight back was mostly IMC in an out of the clouds at 6000'.

Another Trip to the Spruce Goose Cafe

Flew a friend up to 0S9 for breakfast this morning. The Seattle temperatures were forecast to be in the 90's so we wanted to get an early start before the temps got too hot. Turns out things weren't that cool in the morning with the OAT pegged at 85F at 9:30 am and temps aloft weren't much cooler. We were in trail of a Beaver Amphib in the pattern at 0S9 and on the ground I talked to the pilot and he had come from Seattle where his plane is docked outside his house on Lake Washington. The Spruce Goose Cafe was packed and we waited 20 minutes for a table, but completely worth the wait for a huge plate of breakfast food. We made a leisurely trip back with a flight over Snoqualmie Falls and Rattlesnake Lake.

The Joys of Airplane Ownership?

The airplane is finally back from the mechanic after waiting six weeks for a new starter drive assembly from TCM. We opted to buy a genuine factory part vs an overhauled part just for the peace of mind that we weren't buying someone else's broken part restored to 'factory' standards. If an overhauled alternator for your car fails its no big deal, but a failure with an overhauled airplane part might end up being a big deal. We've also purchased overhauled parts in the past and ended up buying new ones due to the eventual failure of the non-factory part. The negative aspect of buying factory parts is the cost. A factory part may cost 2-3 times more than an overhauled part. For a $100 part it's not that significant of a difference, but in the case of a starter drive assembly an overhauled version was $1000 and a new one $3300.

Luckily, having airplane partners helps bring the repair costs down but with each big repair bill my average hourly cost goes up. In the last couple of years, we've had to overhaul all of the cylinders of the O-470 (at 600 hours), replace the DG, overhaul the propellor hub, and replace the starter drive.

Its Been A While

I'm usually pretty good about blogging my flying adventures, but I just realized that I haven't writtten anything since April. It's not that I haven't flown in two months, it's just that I haven't flown myself or family/friends anywhere. Looking at my logbook, I've logged around 20 hours from the right seat as an instructor. So come to think of it, I have done a lot of flying in the last 60 days, including an IFR cross country, numerous instrument approaches, and a couple of flight reviews.

Another Airplane in the Logbook

Today I had the opportunity to give a flight review in a Commander 114. How I ended up flying in the Commander is an interesting story. We had just recently obtained a hangar for our 182 and pushing the plane into the hangar is a bit of a chore. I remembered that one of my friends who is a partner in a Commander had an electric tug sitting in their hangar. I inquired as to the status of the tug and the owners ended up giving me the tug. I think the functionality of the tug was intermitent and they just wanted to recover the hangar space. During that conversation, one of the partners of the Commander was up for a flight review and during our discussion I disclosed that I was a CFI. One thing led to another and a review was scheduled.

The interesting thing is that I had been a passenger in the right seat of this Commander a year or so prior before obtaining my CFI. Now, I was in the right seat again, but this time as a CFI and evaluating another pilot for a flight review. It's wierd how things in life come full circle. The review went well and I even got to fly from the right seat for bit and land the airplane.